Erin Livingston '04 costarred in the comedy variety show "Feedbag Material" in the Den on Saturday. However, when Livingston began her studies at DePauw in 2000, she had a different goal.
"I originally planned to be a middle school music teacher," Livingston said. "I had it all planned out."
Apart from the small class size and welcoming faculty, DePauw's music school and scholarships initially attracted her to the university. But after learning of other opportunities, she majored in anthropology.
"I'd be missing out on so many other things I wanted to experience or learn about while I was here," Livingston said of her original plan.
Those experiences she would have otherwise missed out on included attending speakers and participating in small reading groups that analyzed racism, capitalism and economic rights. She spent a spring break with the Kensington Welfare Rights Union in Philadelphia. She held vigil against the death penalty at the Federal Correctional Institution in Terre Haute, Ind.
Livingston and her friends were involved with Peace Camp and Drag Ball. They brought fair trade coffee and recycling to campus. According to Livingston, they are the reason why students today have many alternative housing options, safe spaces for various identity groups and an effective sexual harassment policy.
Livingston never attended a Monon Bell game.
"That just wasn't my scene," Livingston said. "I was more likely to be found in heavy conversation."
Some conversation took place in the lobby of S.C.A.R.E. house (Student Coalition of Awareness, Revolution and Education), which is now located in Senior Hall.
"At any given moment, you could come downstairs and be in a room with people who didn't look like you or think like you," Livingston said.
Livingston said she was not a "traditional" DePauw student. Though she attended fraternity parties, she was thoroughly involved with Independent Council, DePauw Progressive Network and United DePauw. She interned at the Compton Center after her freshman year and planned events for DePauw.
There was also a band she and her friends followed, made up of mostly Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity members. If they played somewhere, that's where she would be.
"Otherwise, we were constantly talking, constantly trying to fix the world," Livingston said.
Brett O'Bannon, a DePauw professor of political science, said Livingston stood out because of her commitment to progressive change.
"She had a real interest in gender issues, for one," O'Bannon said. "Gender was big on her list."
O'Bannon said Livingston was also interested in class and race equality and making a difference in the local community.
O'Bannon connected to Livingston through DePauw Progressive Network. He remembers her as a "somewhat shy kid" with energy, and he thinks her recent involvement with comedy is interesting.
"She's making a difference," O'Bannon said. "That's a teacher's dream."
Glen Keucker, a history professor, said that Livingston was unlike the typical DePauw student in that she was full of intellectual angst, driven by discomfort with the limitations of formal education.
"She was too smart for college, and it took her time to figure that out," Keuker said in an e-mail.
Keucker, who had Livingston in his Introduction to Conflict Studies course, described her and her friends as "pioneers," who created a space for independent students and made DePauw's students more aware, and for the most part, more likely to embrace differences.
Like Livingston's DePauw experience, her life after leaving Greencastle was far from cookie-cutter. Though she walked with her class at graduation, she spent a year in Bloomington to finish her credits. She then moved to Austin, Texas, and waited tables at a highway diner. After three years, she quit working a traditional job.
"I had a need to keep learning [and keep] having experiences that would challenge me," Livingston said.
In 2007, Livingston got involved with the slam poetry network and went on the road for six months, living on the greyhound out of a suitcase and backpack. Unfortunately, she dated someone who was an addict, and it became an unhealthy situation. She moved back to Indiana and built a "home base" in Indianapolis.
Today, she works for a family-owned flower shop and freelances for The Indianapolis Star, as well as producing what she calls "absurd performance art," like "Feedbag Material."
"The world needs art just as much as it needs good business leaders and qualified, well-compensated teachers," Livingston said.
Livingston said she didn't choose comedy; it found her. The comedian she works with in "Feedbag Material," Courtney Meyers, didn't feel she was getting what she wanted out of her experience, and Livingston felt similarly about her community. Thus, they collaborated.
Unlike slam poetry, which has specific rules, Feedbag Material is experimental. The show encompasses vignettes, sketches, poetry and other forms of standup material. Livingston and Meyers create props from cardboard and construction paper.
"It's low budget, D.I.Y. entertainment, and I think it's hard to go wrong with that," Livingston said.
Livingston said the best part about comedy is guiding the audience on an emotional ride. Organizing at DePauw helped her organize poetry slams and "Feedbag Material."
She said not many DePauw alumni do what she does, and said she lives a frugal life, but it's still community building, and it's still important work.
"I have relatives who are doctors and pharmacists and ... business people," she said. "I can't do that. But they can't do what I'm doing either."